


Loyal to The End They Say He Was

by Galysh_Sky



Category: Charlie Bone Series | Children of the Red King - Jenny Nimmo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 04:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14276694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galysh_Sky/pseuds/Galysh_Sky
Summary: A long time ago, I read this book series, and was pretty much cool with it up until the 6th book. Lo and behold, a decade later, I've re-read the 7th book and am just as troubled by how Tancred's death was handled. So here I am, not working on OSH, but writing this instead.





	Loyal to The End They Say He Was

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago, I read this book series, and was pretty much cool with it up until the 6th book. Lo and behold, a decade later, I've re-read the 7th book and am just as troubled by how Tancred's death was handled. So here I am, not working on OSH, but writing this instead.

_“Loyal to The End They Say He Was.”_

                    “Do you realize what you’ve done, Boy?!”

                A thunderous voice, spittle flying out across the floor, and a sharp pain in his wrists where Manfred’s fingers had dug in. The headmaster’s lips were moving, but any words he spat were lost to the drum beat in Lysander’s ears. His fingers felt sticky, his knuckles ached, and his head pounded as it hadn’t done since he was a child. Fingers dug into his shoulders as he was shook harshly, buthe felt nothing. He spun, feet following the ritual steps automatically and freed himself. There were dark shapes flickering into view in his peripheral vision, all armed. Outside, something boomed, and for a moment drowned out the heavy drumming. Lysander blinked suddenly aware that is ancestors had circled protectively around him, their polearms pointed outwards. Though he stood firm on his feet and more importantly still they had not disappeared. His gaze flickered about noting Manfred’s angry sneer, Dagbert’s cowering body, the headmaster’s grim look, and finally his own stained hands.

                “It’s alright,” Lysander heard himself say but even to his own ears his voice sounded gravelly. “You can leave now, I’m-I’m fine.” Several of his ancestors levelled intangible but clearly disbelieving gazes on him. Still without his will to support them they had no choice but to return to their own plane. His head continued to pound, a steady throb that made him wish he could curl up into a ball and scream.

                “You’ll be suspended until further noticed,” the headmaster growled, and Lysander nodded, too drained to argue when they towed him from the room and flung him out into the storm. The teenager remained sprawled out on the steps for a long moment, his head titled back towards the sky as the rain poured down and soaked through his clothing. It wasn’t cold. Eventually the tolling of the afternoon recess bell and a particularly bright flash of sheet lightning sent him staggering to his feet, shivers racking his frame. When questioned later, he wouldn’t be able to recall how he made it all the way up to the Heights nor how many times he stumbled, tripped, or fell along the way. The house was still and blissfully silent when he stumbled into it, his sisters at school and his father at work. he dragged himself inside, the gales rushing down from further up the hillside almost knocking him over. With numb fingers he stripped out of his clothing, leaving them pooled on the tile floor. Still shivering he climbed the great staircase and withdrew into his room, curling up under the blankets and clenching his eyes shut. The gulf that was brewing where his heart had beat that very morning had no trouble swallowing him whole.

                Voices, loud and excited drifted up to him, pulling him out of his restless sleep. Lysander opened his eyes to darkness, his blanket blocking his eyesight. He debated peeking out to see what was going on but decided that the meagre warmth he’d managed to collect wasn’t worth the effort. He could hear a steady pitter-patter of rain against the window glass, it didn’t seem to have calmed down much from earlier. He doubted it would ever calm down.

                “Ew! Papa! Sander left his clothes all over the floor!”

                Lysander burrowed deeper under his blankets and shoved his head under the pillow.

                “Sander!” That was Alexandra again, where everyone else had been born with vocal chords, Lysander could swear that hers were instead made up of pipe organs.

                “Lysander? Are you home?”

                His father’s voice pitched just right to reach him in his room, smoothly cut through the noise. Lysander didn’t reply, when he heard the stairs creak and heavy footsteps come to a halt before his door he belatedly remembered that he hadn’t locked it or even closed. Lysander half-heartedly debated getting up to make a token effort to close it, but a particularly loud crash of thunder had him flinching instead. “Son?” The door swung all the way open as his father made his way inside the room and came to halt by his bed. A moment later a large hand reached out and gently touched his shoulder, it squeezed tightly before the bed shifted as his father sat down.

                “Did something happen at school? You’re home a bit early.”

                Lysander was torn between snorting at the understatement and flinging himself at his father, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to scream or cry. Arms settled around him and a moment later he was being relocated into a warm and solid lap. “You’re getting a bit big for this,” Judge Sage said, voice still gentle and soothing, a hand gently ran up and down the teenager’s tense back. Lysander leaned against him, thoughts pressing to the fore of his mind, but what came out instead was; “I got suspended from school.”

                The hand paused on its downward stroke, before resuming. “I’d gathered,” his father said, “It’s rather difficult to break out of that building.”

                “Not impossible though,” Lysander corrected automatically, “Not now that Uncle T’s gone and blown down the front doors.” His father jolted at that, and the boy imagined that he was already planning out the court case that was sure to ensue.

                “You didn’t run away, though?”

                “No, I got kicked out till further notice.”

                “Why?”

                Lysander hesitated, hands toying with the edge of his father’s shirt. “I… I might have punch that Dagbert kid and broken his jaw, as well… as his nose, and at least one rib, I think.”

                “Why?” His father’s tone was starting to take one that he used during court sessions, his hand had not stopped its gentle movements though.

                Lysander winced all the same, and inhaled a slightly shaky breath, before he spoke again, “Because he murdered Tancred, Papa.” The hand froze and a moment later Lysander found himself being pushed back to meet his father’s horrified gaze and questions. “Tanc’s dead,” the 15-year-old repeated, “Emma went and got Uncle T, and that… that monster was bragging, he… he’s gone, papa, he’s gone.”

                Judge Sage didn’t say anything, staring into the lost eyes of his eldest child, who for all that his voice was trembling did not look capable of shedding a tear. He pulled him back into his arms, tucking the head under his chin, closed his eyes and prayed.

                ******************************************************************************************

                His head throbbed, a steady ache that caused his vision to flicker in and out of focus. Not that there was much to see, the spiritual planes were dank and empty, the sky heavy with clouds that hung just out of reach. Lysander sighed and directed his gaze downwards, he was dressed in his weekend attire, jeans, and a sweatshirt. The top wasn’t his, it was a huge baggy monstrosity with a giant sun embroidered on the back, that had become a permanently loaned item from Tancred. A pseudo apology for ruining an essay he’d worked hard on with an unexpected rain shower. The teenager stood up, wiping dirt of his pants, and looked around, in the distanced a bright flash lit up the sky. He headed towards it, under his feet the ground felt warm, the grass a bit prickly, he wondered briefly where his boots had gone off too. Another flash lit up the horizon just as reached the crest of a particularly steep hill. Not far away a little boy was standing, arms outstretched, and head tilted back towards the sky. Though the clouds looked threateningly enough, no rain had yet to fall.

                Lysander approached cautiously, words flitting through his brain and catching in his throat. Viewed from behind the figure looked strikingly familiar, painfully so. To his surprise he found himself no taller than the other boy. He inspected his hands, they stuck out like little stick figures from the shelter of the sleeves, there was a bandage on his left hand. He guessed that he couldn’t be older than 7 or 8, he’d caught himself badly that year falling out of a tree. He looked to the right and met gray eyes shaded by curled lashed so that they looked as dark as the clouds above him.

                “Tancred,” Lysander said, his voice came out higher pitched than he was used to, and he winced. The boy blinked at him, head tilted to the side in eerie imitation of a bird, his hair frizzled and sparked itself into a mess.

               “You can see me?” The voice was light, curious.

               “You’re a spirit, of course I can see you,” Lysander replied automatically. “What are you doing here?”

              Tancred turned away, shoving his hands into his short’s pockets. “Dunno,” he answered sounding lost, “I just woke up here.”

               “Do you remember how you wound up here?”

               Overhead thunder cracked, and Lysander startled, his friend didn’t look at him. With his head still titled back and in the same lost tone, he continued softly, “I was cold. I didn’t want to be cold anymore.”

              The words sent chills down Lysander’s spine, he stepped closed reaching out before he thought better of it and shoved his own hands in his pockets. “Are you cold now?” He asked hesitantly. Gray eyes blinked at him solemnly before flitting away again. Tancred shrugged, he held out a hand, palm facing upwards and a large drop of rain went splat against it. followed shortly by several more until a steady downpour had soaked Lysander to the bone. He sneezed, shifting nervously as the water began to pool and mud squelched up between his toes. Tancred didn’t seem to mind, he had closed his eyes, a look of boredom on his face as the rain ran rivulets down it and soaked his t-shirt into a dark green.

             Lysander scooted over and reached out to brush his hand against the small shoulder, when his friend didn’t acknowledge him he gave it a small push. “Tanc, buddy? You still with me?”

           Eyes flitted to him and away again, “I’m cold,” was the only reply. Lysander frowned and stepped in front of his friend, under his hands Tancred felt warm and steady exuding the same sort of heat his aunt had the first time he’d visited the spiritual planes. Unlike his aunt though, Tancred didn’t seem inclined to help him. He gave no reaction, not even a twitch when shaken rudely. “Tanc, bud, I need you to look at me,” Lysander tried again, a pleading note entering his voice. “C’mon man, work with me here.” T his horror, he felt a hot ball start to crawl up his chest and settle in the base of his throat, stealing his air.

         Tancred stared at him, before reaching out to poke lightly at his cheek, “don’t cry, man,” he mumbled, “it’s unseemly.”

        “Don’t cry?! It’s unseemly?!” Lysander squawked. “I’ll cry if I want to, damn you! You’re dead!” He fisted the thin material and shook it harshly. “You’re dead, you hear me?!! Dead! Like Dracula dead! Like ghost haunting dead! Like never coming back dead! You! You’re…” His voice broke off, leaving him choking on words and whimpers, the words failing him because though his best friend was standing right in front of him, it only served as proof that he no longer existed elsewhere.

      “I’m dead?” There was confusion in that tone and Lysander wheeled back in surprise. “How am I dead? I’m right here.”

       “You don’t remember anything?” At the shake of Tancred’s head, Lysander forced himself to take a calming breath and reevaluate. “You’re here because you died, Tancred. You…you, you know, you drowned.”

       The shorter boy scrunched up his nose, looking annoyed, “I drowned? That’s pathetic.” He paused before looking panicked and surging forwards to grip Lysander’s hoodie with trembling hands. “Waittaminute! If I’m here, and I’m dead, are you also dead?!” There was a rarely heard note of pure panic in his friend’s voice, one that Lysander wasn’t sure how to handle.

       “No, no, calm down. I’m a spirit-summoner, remember? I can cross the borders.”

           “Are you sure?”

           “Yes, I’m sure,” Lysander assured him, wrapping an arm around the trembling shoulders. “Speaking of, you do look kind of cold buddy, why don’t we go inside?” Tancred stared back at him with an odd look in his eyes, and though he physically looked eight, that expression recalled his older self. Lysander shifted uncomfortably, the sensation that he needed to bring them both back and quickly grew stronger.

           “Sure ‘Sander, we can go inside,” Tancred eventually said, still looking at him oddly, his lips turned up into a facsimile of his usual grin. “Lead the way, bud, I’ll follow.” Permission granted, Lysander grasped his wrist, the shirt wouldn’t make a strong enough leash and thought of home. Of his warm bed and his baby sisters, of his mother’s loud laughter and his father’s small smiles. He thought of hours spent whispering with his best friend under the shelter of his massive blanket, and of Homer’s loud comments thrown in at random.

           He opened his eyes to a tall ceiling off which hung several flags, their thick cotton barely shifting in the breeze from the open window. He looked around sitting up on his elbows in his room. The door was shut, casting a good portion of the room into shadows, he thought he could hear voices drifting up from below, but they were muted. Lysander slid out of bed wobbling dangerously as his legs protested their sudden activity. Limping slightly, he made his way to the door and flicked the light switch. When he turned around there was a figure sitting in his desk chair. His heart beat out a painful double thump followed by several more in rapid succession. The air got lost somewhere between his lungs and his mouth, leaving him to gasp like a docked fish. He must have made some sort of sound for the figure glanced at him, hair was in spiky dishevelment and eyes were dark, his skin was pale almost grayish, his traditional tan forgotten somewhere where the sun still shone. He was dressed in his school uniform, sitting with his knees pressed to his chest in the swivel chair.

          Lysander let out a cry and leapt forwards, slamming into the chair and sending it careening across the room with an ugly sound. As for himself he banged his leg against the corner of his desk and would have taken a header straight onto the hardwood floor if he hadn’t gotten his arms up in time. Lysander shoved himself up onto his knees and looked around desperately. Tancred was standing a few feet away, his hands shoved in his pockets.

         “T-Tanc?” Lysander called out to him shakily, “What? How?” He reached out a hand fingers brushing straight through the hem of Tancred’s slacks.

           “You said you wanted to come inside.” There was a apathetic tonality in his best friend’s voice.

           “I… what?”

          “So, I followed you back,” Tancred continued and stepped forwards until he could crouch down in front of Lysander, his heavy boots not making a sound on the hardwood floor, he rested his forearms on his knees. The lost look was back on his face. “The _storm’s_ crying. I’m really dead, aren’t I?”

           A knock at the door came before Lysander could formulate an answer. Tancred stood up again and without thinking Lysander tried to grab him, fingers phasing uselessly through cloth and flesh. Tancred looked down at him, “stop that,” he said, “you’re making it hard to keep my form.” The knock at the door came again, a bit louder and more demanding. “You should answer that,” Tancred commented and collapsed onto the bed, the sheets didn’t deign to shift under his bodyweight. Lysander stared at him silently not quite able to form the cohesiveness that would enable him to open the door. His brain was running in over time trying to understand why it was that Tancred, spirit or not, was able to manifest directly into his bedroom. The door swung open, footsteps and then a warm body was pressing against his side. A familiar scent, lemony, drifted by his nose. He turned, his mother was there watching him with concerned eyes. Lysander leaned against her without prompting, distantly aware that now would be the appropriate time to start bawling, but he couldn’t, not with Tancred lying on his bed and watching him impassively. Instead he closed his eyes and hid his face in his mother’s shoulder.

         There was something calling him, a flickering warmth at the edge of his consciousness one that kept drawing his attention with sharp bursts of pain not unlike the feeling of a cat’s claws. Tancred ignored it and continued his silent vigil, Lysander had passed out again with the help of Auntie Jess’ special herbal tea. He had no doubt that she’d slipped something else into it. Lysander had been in no mood to sleep when she’d first offered him a cup. The storm bringer scooted closed on the bed, arranging himself so that he had a view of the outside courtyard as well. Not that there was much of a view through the sheets of rain. He wandered how the kids were doing, if Charlie had managed to retrieve his wand and fetch Billy back yet. Emma’s tear-stricken face flitted across his mindscape and he shuddered, shaking his head did nothing to rid himself of the hot flare of guilt that had bloomed. It didn’t matter anyway, he was dead and so she’d never see him again. he’d never see her again. Lysander rolled over, an arm going straight through his stomach. He watched it reform, noting disinterestedly that it now looked like he’d been impaled.

       “I’d like a word with you.”

Tancred startled almost sending himself out the wall and looked towards the door. Auntie Jess was standing in the doorway appearing as regal as any matriarch. Tancred winced, he’d forgotten that she could also see spirits, still he hesitated to move. Lysander had asked him to come inside, called him back from that hill top, and begged him to stay. He was beginning to wonder if his friend really understood what he had been asking.

      “Tancred.”

         There was steel in that voice, Tancred curled in on himself slightly but didn’t move otherwise.

       “Tancred Torsson, I will not ask again, come here this instant.”

         When angered, his aunt Jess could be just as terrifying as his mother. Tancred scrambled off the bed, stepping through his friend in the process and darted out the door. It closed firmly behind him. He stood nervously at attention, eyes flitting about every which way to avoid is aunt’s gaze. “Tancred…,” there was a vaguely scolding note in that tone, “follow me please.” Smiling weakly she led the way down the hall and into her office, motioning him into a chair, before sitting down across from him. A sharp prick drew his attention to his wrist, it was bleeding, a small droplet of blood squeezing its way out.

         “You need to go home, Tancred.”

         His head snapped up at that, giving his aunt a wide-eyed look. Aunt Jess smiled at him, though it looked half-hearted at best. “I am not jesting you, it would truly be best if you went home swiftly.”

        “I’m dead,” Tancred informed her, thoughts pulling up the feeling of freezing cold water and darkness, he shivered involuntarily. “What does it matter that I go home now?”

         “Not exactly,” The matriarch corrected, she hesitated clearly torn before divulging an explanation, but wen he made a inquiring noise she shook her had and looked sad. “So alike you endowed children,” she murmured.

        “I’m unique!” Tancred protested automatically, “one of a kind! A~”

          “A special little snowflake, yes, I’m aware,” his aunt cut him off. “And you’re now going to march yourself home like a god boy, before the Flames get tired of calling for you.”

         “The Flames?!” Tancred yelped, “What do you mean ‘calling for me’?!”

           Instead of replying, his aunt motioned at him again. Tancred looked down, noticing upon closer inspection that his skin was starting to become covered with little scratch marks. Under his very eyes, a new one appeared much deeper than the others. “Go home,” Aunt Jess repeated, “and come back during daylight hours.”

         “But-Sander!” Tancred said, he flexed his hands awkwardly, they still felt cold and useless to him.

         “What about my son?’

          “I can’t up and leave him!” Tancred snapped, “I followed him here, I can’t just, just leave.” He collapsed inwards on himself burying his fingers into his hair and fighting down the need to scream his frustrations out at his aunt.

         “What about your mother?”

           Tancred jolted, snapping his head up to look at his aunt, aghast.

           “What about your father? Are you just going to leave them alone?”

              “I… but, I,” Tancred trailed off thinking of his mother’s face when she’d told him that he used to have an older brother. Outside the storm raged on, and he abruptly felt sick, his stomach turning itself into a tourniquet.

             “What about Gabriel, Emma, Billy, Charlie, and Olivia? Aren’t those children counting on you?”

             “Enough!” Tancred yelled, his fingers digging into his skull, “Enough, please.”

               “Do you really want to watch my son grow up, see him spend the rest of his life without you?” Aunt Jess was intractable, her tone firm and merciless. Her gloved hands settled over his own and forced his head up to look into her eyes. Tancred struggled to focus on her, but she kept blurring in and out of focus, it hurt, this hurt. He’d known that his parents would be destroyed if he left them, but he hadn’t been thinking and had flung himself recklessly at Dagbert despite knowing that the other was a certified drowner. He’d been stupid, but still it hurt, he didn’t, couldn’t…

            “I’m cold Auntie,” he said, “it hurts. It hurts.” Aunt Jess murmured a soft sound of acquisition and ran her hands through his hair gently, before pressing a kiss to his forehead and gently pushing him back. Tancred wiped at his eyes angrily, and when they felt dry enough he chanced a glance at his aunt. She had leaned back in her chair and was twirling a stick of incense between her fingers. “Sorry Auntie,” Tancred said, he forcefully inhaled, and stood up. “I’ll be taking my leave now. I’ll… I’ll see you tomorrow?”

           “Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Aunt Jess answered.

            Despite it’s fierceness the wind wasn’t much of a hindrance for him when he stepped through the window. Tancred fell, landing on the ground with nary a sound. He broke out into a run, wishing that he could call up his own endowment to boost his speed. The trail was steep, but his feet hardly slipped or skidded, a perk of having no material weight he supposed. His father was seated at the entrance of the compound, his head resting on his knees, the winds, swirling around him in miniature tornadoes spoke of broken bones should a mere human dare to approach. Tancred hesitating, stopping just out of reach, carefully he extended a foot and nudged at his father, it went straight through almost sending him sprawling. Tancred stumbled back, feeling air that he didn’t need rush into his chest, he spun on his heel and bolted towards the house. The heavy door was bolted and barred but he went straight through it, straight through his mother as well who was wearing a rut into the floor and up the stairs. He burst through the wall and found himself face to face with a hissing cat. Though the claws that swiped at him did no damage, the commentary could not have been clearer.

            “I know, I know,” Tancred muttered and approached his bed. He was lying on it, a cat, Leo, he thought was pawing at his chest and meowing angrily. It stopped when he sat down on the bed. Tancred looked down, noting with distaste the blueish tint to his lips and the ugly flop of his hair for once lying flat on his forehead. He didn’t relish the idea of returning to a body he already knew would be full of aches and pains. He could feel the water emitting from it, filling his lungs, and stealing his air away. Tancred screwed his eyes shut and brought a hand up to his chest, under his fingers only silence resounded. Aries pressed against his leg and purred loudly tail tip twitching like a pendulum.

          “Yeah, I know,” Tancred repeated. He ran a hand down his face, stood up, turned around and flopped over backwards. The pain greeted him like a long-lost friend, reaching up to swamp his mind in its grip. Tancred fought back, desperately trying to claw some sense of being into his body. three sources of warmth pressed up against him, purring so loudly that he thought his eardrums might burst. He concentrated on breathing, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, his chest ached and burned. There was a voice in his ear, whispering to him, telling him that he _must_ , that he _wasn’t allowed to give up._

           Less than 24 hours after he’d closed them, Tancred Torsson, opened his eyes and screamed.


End file.
